By GHK Lall- Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo can be slippery when he chooses. It is how he brings the vice presidency, and the presidency that he once held so ingloriously, to a low watermark. The lowest. I note the letter from former Guyana Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director, Dr. Vincent Adams in SN and KN, and a phrase caught my eye, one which I now single out for a few comments.
The phrase from Dr. Jagdeo is “I don’t know if it’s true…”, which was after he had laid waste Dr. Adams’s work record, his tenure and seniority at the U.S. Dept of Energy, if not the man himself. I mention that as the background, which Dr. Adams enlightened Guyanese on the facts about himself, and in a clear and overpowering manner.
My focus is on those words from Vice President Jagdeo: “I don’t know if it’s true…”. If a man who was a former president, a man who is now in control of so much in Guyana, “don’t know if it’s true” about something, about anything, involving anybody, then honesty, personal ethics, personal standards would demand abstaining from what he did.
Why mention those work details? How are they relevant? President Ali himself had said there is use for Adams’ skills, and a matching place was to be found for him after Adams was sent on leave. But there was the vice president having his vicious and vindictive say while hiding behind “I don’t know if it’s true.”
So, what is the vice president engaging in when he takes a malice-filled swipe at Dr. Adams because he dares to question? Because he speaks out about what is going on in Guyana under the presidency of PPP strongman Jagdeo?
No visceral joy should overcome Dr. Jagdeo, make him hurl himself so recklessly to such depths, absent truth. Frankly, Dr. Jagdeo is now happy to make a living dealing in what he doesn’t know, enthused to feed rumors and unconfirmed secondhand nastiness.
If he “doesn’t know if it’s true” about Dr. Adams, then say nothing; avoid going there at all. What is gained by putting down a Guyanese that Jagdeo should know was at the peaks of achievement in America? A cheap political point is not worth it, chief. Who is hurt more by his assault, Dr. Jagdeo or Dr. Adams? It is how Bharrat Jagdeo readily contributes to bringing himself into increasing disrepute.
Here is another point: if a critical position is taken, destructive words have to be uttered, let there be certainty that both will stand on their own. “Doesn’t know if it’s true” is a hedge phrase, a slick defensive escape route, that his legal advisers (just as lowborn and lowdown) guided him to incorporate into his press conference flounces. He has done so before. If he “doesn’t if it’s true” then stop, never start that rant.
A former president shouldn’t stoop to rumormongering and scaremongering, being a master conveyor of hearsay. Nor a fabricator that takes the unknown and holds it out as a posture, as the basis of a personal attack. But Jagdeo is nothing if not slickness clothed in a suit made of silt.
He knows that once a deception (or an unknown) is delivered into the public domain, then there will be believers, with much damage done. No quantity of defenses can undo fully what is odious and scurrilous. It was what Josef Stalin and Joseph Goebbels cut their eyeteeth on, how they made their bones, to use a mafia term.
My own counsel to the vice president is that if and when something must be said in the public domain that is sure to attract a powerful rebuttal, then he must stand like a man and speak like a man. He should be so sure of the position that he does not have to equivocate and prevaricate.
As Dr. Jagdeo ought to know only the lowest of skulking creatures pop out of a hole, squawk a loud taunt or insult, and then disappear right back into that dark hole. “Don’t know if it’s true” fits that bill to a tee. It is more than unbecoming of a national leader, it is unmanly. There is no problem, no pushback, with an honest putdown, but on two conditions only.
The first is that it must have basis that stands up to any kind of scrutiny. The second is that it is not delivered to intimidate into silence, but the truth of the record. Real men live so, abide by those standards. They don’t hide behind slick words. Since Dr. Jagdeo is so determined to sock it to some of his adversaries (tormenting foes in his way of thinking), he must ensure that he is on the firmest ground.
If not, he leaves himself open to endless ridicule, makes himself come across as low and lesser than he is. Vice Presidents distance from such dirtiness as “don’t know if it’s true.” Former presidents should have nothing to do with such ugliness, obscenities.
Principled men, straightforward men. never find it pleasing to go where Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo goes and relishes.
